AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Down or Dive

AT THE END OF THE WORLD, I was smoking a joint. I wasn't lying—any given day or hour, I was smoking a joint, okay? Casey and I had been perpetually high since May.

Breezy was going to the NFC Divisional, and Casey was so fucked up, he thought it was a Global Victory. Meh.

Evicted. I may or may not have been living in a bar bathroom on Myrtle, bottomless drinks paid for, courtesy of unemployment checks, by New York State. Down or Dive.

One Tequila Sunrise, and I was always in their bathroom, collapsed, clutching a toilet, spewing acid silently.

There I was. Doing or Dying.

It was finally... finally... happe... ning...

"'ay, Kir!" His knuckles, rapping against the door, staccato, drilling through a dizziness. "Kira, you good?"

Good?

I didn't really know anymore.

"Mph." I winced as I sat up. "Mphhmm."

"Oh, you are alive," he chirped dryly. Barely. "Good, I thought you'd died of alcohol poisoning, baby."

Clumsily, I struggled to my knees, curling my fingers around the edge of the sink and heaving myself off the grimy tiled floor of the Dive bathroom. Daily.

What day was it?

It'd been a fucking year, but it'd been an especially shitty week, and I was ready for a rally: knocking back another shot, railing a couple lines of coke, splitting a spliff with him. Yeah. Yeah.

The second I pushed the door open, albeit an eternity later, I saw him. Casey, leaning against the doorframe, blocking the narrow hallway, arms crossed, a deceptively charming smile on his lips. Imagine that smooth, sweet-talking smile of a salesman, selling you hard drugs as if it's sugar-coated candy. Casey Kelly.

Sometimes up. Sometimes down.

Honestly, a sweetheart, if you knew him, but... not the kind of dude you want to piss off at a bar, if you want to make it to work on Monday.

He swung my backpack from his shoulder, and I caught it in my gut, jackknifing my breath to inhale sharply. "Oof." I shot him a moody glare. "Thanks."

"Backyard?"

Casey had slipped a crumpled joint—spliff?—from his sweatshirt pocket before I could blink.

I nodded. I wasn't high or drunk enough to believe I was homeless and Tom Brady was going to the NFC Divisional with the Bucs. Fuck. Clearly, Case was running on the rush of another Breezy win, because it didn't seem to have registered to him that, uh, we were slumming.

In the back corner of the backyard, I put the joint—spliff—between my lips. I could taste a Marlboro Red. He lit it for me, and I watched it burn as I inhaled, easing off and handing it to him. He shook his head. "No, you're not smoking?"

"Nah." Casey lifted a PBR. Taking Spring tradition to Dive. Respect. "Weed makes me think. Beer makes me not think."

"Sure."

Only a few drags, before I offered again, lightheaded, and Casey caved, burning it down in a raw hit. Inhale. "Okay, so, I—" He coughed. "I spent all day tracking down a stolen iPhone for a prostitute."

Huh. Interesting.

Being roommates-turned-friends with a dealer had its perks. Besides the obvious—free shit, from codeine to molly to coke to weed to crack to meth, if I wanted, whenever I hung out with him. But also... The Fucking Stories.

I couldn't make them up if I tried.

Grinning, I lit the dwindling spliff and handed it off. So..." Channeling old Yoona tradition from Spring. "...what did you learn today?"

Normally it was useless shit, fun facts, random stuff noted from LinkNYC terminals.

"Nothing," he scoffed. "I delivered a bunch of pills out into fucking Queens, and all I got when I returned her iPhone 7 was a few fucking party favors." He blew out a sloppy slew of smoke, agitated by the memory. "So, I guess I learned not to stick my fucking neck out for bitches."

Ouch.

Oblivious, Case softened into a lazy smile, twisting the spliff between his fingers. "What did you learn today, Kira?"

Uh, fuck. It would've been difficult to have anything that measured up to his stories, even if I hadn't pronounced my new day job as a fucking couch potato, bound to binge every last show on Netflix. Highlight of my day, or possibly, my week, watching the Saints beat the Panthers with him, watching the Saints beat the Bears with him.

"Oh, so, you heard about what happened today at Von Hewitt, right?"

I'd been laid off from my job as an ice cream scooper in March, deemed non-essential, and I'd decided not to go back when they opened up again in May, but I was still on their mailing list, officially, I guess. Because I'd gotten an email about what happened at the Von Hewitt in the East Village.

"No." He quirked a brow. "What happened?"

"Okay, so... a Von Hewitt got hit—"

"—like, robbed, right?"

"Yeah." I took a beat to hit the spliff, mellowing, for dramatic effect. "Okay, so, this guy tried to rob the Von Hewitt in the East Village, and threw a brick at the poor bitch working behind the counter, knocked her out cold."

His expression didn't change. "Oh, he threw a brick at her?"

"Yeah."

"Cool."

"So..." I drawled, shrugging loosely, "I guess I learned that a brick can be a pretty good weapon." I broke off in a cough. Fuck. Shit hits hard.

"Oh, Kira, you didn't know that a brick makes a pretty good weapon?" he snickered, flashing a roguish grin. I rolled my eyes as I tried to pass the spliff to him, but Casey was two drags deep in a cigarette, gesturing that I could finish it. "I've seen someone crush someone's face with a brick."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Hey!"

My head snapped.

It was a garbled growl, which wasn't unusual at Down or Dive, but suspended in the air: a chewed up, venomously spit snarl, directed at...

"Kira!"

Oh, me?

Oh, Keith. Keith.

Jesus, just when I thought tonight couldn't get any fucking worse. I couldn't deal with him tonight.

"Ah, fuck," Casey hissed under his breath, "I thought you dropped his ass, Kira."

"I did," I hissed back.

And I looked up.

Only a few feet away, shouldering through a throng of quiet bystanders, witnesses to—

—his tattered suit, and bloated flesh, infected sores, oozing puss, slime, sludge blood, and an erratic gaze, richocheting wildly, and cracked, nearly blackened lips, coaxing a ragged moan from his throat—

—closer, too close, too fucking close, lurching... in my... direction—

Holy fuck.

"Kira—"

Oh.

I really was going to die in Down or Dive.